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The living labs (LLs) approach has been applied around the globe to generate innovation within and suited to real-life problems and contexts. Despite the promise of the LL approach for addressing complex challenges like socio-ecological change, there is a gap in practitioner and academic community knowledge surrounding how to measure and evaluate both the performance of a given LL process and its wider impacts. Notably, this gap appears particularly acute in LLs designed to address environmental or agricultural sustainability. This article seeks to verify and address this knowledge gap by conducting an adopted scoping review method which uses a combination of tools for text mining alongside human text analysis. In total, 138 academics literature were screened, out of which 88 articles were read in full and 41 articles were found relevant for this study. The findings reveal limited studies putting forward generalizable approaches or frameworks for evaluating the impact of LLs and even fewer in the agricultural or sustainability sector. The dominant method for evaluation used in the literature is comparative qualitative using case studies. This study uncovers a potential tension regarding LL work: the specificity of LL studies works against the development of evaluation indicators and a universal framework to guide the impact assessment of LLs across jurisdictions and studies in order to move toward generalizability.
Kelly Bronson; Rachana Devkota; Vivian Nguyen. Moving toward Generalizability? A Scoping Review on Measuring the Impact of Living Labs. Sustainability 2021, 13, 502 .
AMA StyleKelly Bronson, Rachana Devkota, Vivian Nguyen. Moving toward Generalizability? A Scoping Review on Measuring the Impact of Living Labs. Sustainability. 2021; 13 (2):502.
Chicago/Turabian StyleKelly Bronson; Rachana Devkota; Vivian Nguyen. 2021. "Moving toward Generalizability? A Scoping Review on Measuring the Impact of Living Labs." Sustainability 13, no. 2: 502.
Printed pictures are traditional forms of agricultural extension for smallholder farmers. They receive historical academic criticism but remain inexpensive, do not require technical skills (unlike smartphones), and bypass language/literacy barriers. Here, a comprehensive participatory pipeline is described that included 56 Nepalese women farmer editors to develop 100 picture-based lessons. Thereafter, the Theory of Planned Behavior is used as a framework to evaluate 20 diverse lessons using quantitative and qualitative data (Nvivo-11) collected from four groups, focusing on low-literacy women: the women farmer editors (n = 56); smallholder field testers who had prior exposure to extension agents and the actual innovations (control group, n = 120), and those who did not (test group, n = 60); expert stakeholders (extension agents/scientists, n = 25). The expected comprehension difference between farmer groups was non-substantive, suggesting that the participatory editing/testing approaches were effective. There were surprising findings compared to the academic literature: smallholders comprehended the pictures without the help of extension agents, perhaps because of the participatory approaches used; children assisted their mothers to understand caption-based lessons; the farmers preferred printed pictures compared to advanced information and communication technologies (ICTs); and the resource-poor farmers were willing to pay for the printed materials, sufficient to make them cost-neutral/scalable. These findings have implications for smallholder farmers beyond Nepal.
Rachana Devkota; Helen Hambly Odame; John Fitzsimons; Roshan Pudasaini; Manish Raizada. Evaluating the Effectiveness of Picture-Based Agricultural Extension Lessons Developed Using Participatory Testing and Editing with Smallholder Women Farmers in Nepal. Sustainability 2020, 12, 9699 .
AMA StyleRachana Devkota, Helen Hambly Odame, John Fitzsimons, Roshan Pudasaini, Manish Raizada. Evaluating the Effectiveness of Picture-Based Agricultural Extension Lessons Developed Using Participatory Testing and Editing with Smallholder Women Farmers in Nepal. Sustainability. 2020; 12 (22):9699.
Chicago/Turabian StyleRachana Devkota; Helen Hambly Odame; John Fitzsimons; Roshan Pudasaini; Manish Raizada. 2020. "Evaluating the Effectiveness of Picture-Based Agricultural Extension Lessons Developed Using Participatory Testing and Editing with Smallholder Women Farmers in Nepal." Sustainability 12, no. 22: 9699.
Agricultural mechanization in developing countries has taken at least two contested innovation pathways—the “incumbent trajectory” that promotes industrial agriculture, and an “alternative pathway” that supports small-scale mechanization for sustainable development of hillside farming systems. Although both pathways can potentially reduce human and animal drudgery, the body of literature that assesses the sustainability impacts of these mechanization pathways in the local ecological, socio-economic, cultural, and historical contexts of hillside farms is either nonexistent or under-theorized. This paper addresses this missing literature by examining the case of Nepal’s first Agricultural Mechanization Promotion Policy 2014 (AMPP) using a conceptual framework of what will be defined as “responsible innovation”. The historical context of this assessment involves the incumbent trajectory of mechanization in the country since the late 1960s that neglected smallholder farms located in the hills and mountains and biased mechanization policy for flat areas only. Findings from this study suggest that the AMPP addressed issues for smallholder production, including gender inequality, exclusion of smallholder farmers, and biophysical challenges associated with hillside farming systems, but it remains unclear whether and how the policy promotes small-scale agricultural mechanization for sustainable development of agriculture in the hills and mountains of Nepal.
Rachana Devkota; Laxmi Prasad Pant; Hom Nath Gartaula; Kirit Patel; Devendra Gauchan; Helen Hambly-Odame; Balaram Thapa; Manish N. Raizada. Responsible Agricultural Mechanization Innovation for the Sustainable Development of Nepal’s Hillside Farming System. Sustainability 2020, 12, 374 .
AMA StyleRachana Devkota, Laxmi Prasad Pant, Hom Nath Gartaula, Kirit Patel, Devendra Gauchan, Helen Hambly-Odame, Balaram Thapa, Manish N. Raizada. Responsible Agricultural Mechanization Innovation for the Sustainable Development of Nepal’s Hillside Farming System. Sustainability. 2020; 12 (1):374.
Chicago/Turabian StyleRachana Devkota; Laxmi Prasad Pant; Hom Nath Gartaula; Kirit Patel; Devendra Gauchan; Helen Hambly-Odame; Balaram Thapa; Manish N. Raizada. 2020. "Responsible Agricultural Mechanization Innovation for the Sustainable Development of Nepal’s Hillside Farming System." Sustainability 12, no. 1: 374.